I bought my baby a red radio

Image from the Museum of Radio & Technology.

 

Dear Radio-istes,

Here is a song, ooh, so good!  Turn it up!  Play it over and over!  I had forgotten it, but the big bad corporate corporation subscriptiion transmission confliction radio played it the other day, in my big bad new(ish) car- and hearing it once is worth plenty of months of lousy Duran Duran hits.  Ah, but, you don't have to pay anything today, because it is your song of the day!

PS  It is also a very typical tale of girls meets boy, unrequited love, and a very sad story, but only if you happen to be an oyster.

PPS

And while we are on the radio, let's have some other ab fab radio songs and one gem from the jukebox:

Roadrunner 

On the Radio

Radio Radio

Mr. Radio

Mr. Radio

Border Radio

Radio Clash

Turn on Your Radio

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Transmission

Listen to the Radio  

Radio Sweetheart 

Video Killed the Radio Star

Mohammed's Radio

You Turn me On, I'm a Radio

Oh Yeah

Hey Mister, That's Me Up on the Jukebox

Notes:  You already know how I feel about Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers: J.M. is the nicest man you'll ever see in concert.  Donna Summer is SO underrated.  Never can decide what I think about Harry Nilsson: unrecognized genius or just another pretty song face?  Indeep is also underrated.  Nanci Giffith IS America's Sweetheart.  Video Killed the Radio Star is absolute genius- listen for all the little details they put in to remind you of old radio sounds.  I refuse to live without the poetry of Mohammed's Radio.  Warren Zevon looks like every man I can remember seeing in the mid to late 1970's.  Everything Joni Mitchell does is genius.  I can't live without Roxy Music, either.  James Taylor- what to do with him?  He's uncool, he's often annoying; this song IS fantastic.

Mulligan

 

Still Life with Garlic, 1949, oil on canvas, William Scott.

Dear Fairies, Merrows, Kelpies, Banshees, & Pookas,

Meet in the meadow, make a community stew, dear ones!  Play this on your radio, and later on, when you are back at home after the celebration, check out fabulous artist William Scott, your countryman, and my latest crush!  

PS

Viewing tips:  Notice the way his beautifully observed still lives flatten into dynamic abstraction.  This, friends, this indwelling of two worlds, the 2 and the 3 dimensional, is the glory of painting.

This lifestyle.

Elliott K. Perkins

Items

 ceramic, 2019-2020

Dear Conflicted,


Raise your hand if you hate change, and are bored by sameness?  I was on the telephone a few days ago- an object I really revere, and you know that, because these pages have featured several pictures of telephones.  I like the cradled ear part, the phone part; and the guts, all filled with ringers and wires.  I love the dial, or the big square buttons.  I love the silly tangle-y corkscrew cord that connects the two.  I love the pocket under the cradle to put your hand into to carry the phone to another chair, or window.

And then there is the spatial facet of telephone conversation:  You are here, they are there.  I see the sky, the tree tops, the birds; you might see the sidewalk, someone walking a dog.  We might see the same things, a moon, a rocket plume, gathering storm clouds.

While on the telephone we got to talking about a song my DJ just played for me, and another song.  These songs are my project for today!  Because I have been thinking about what my job is, and for once, I think I know what it is: it is to use the space of my mind to make things in.  I can make thoughts, images, all kinds of insubstantial items, and then, if a good one comes along, I can make it manifest, like a construction paper flower, and then, I can give it to you.

Principally, I am concerned with these notions in contemplating these songs:  What are they about?  Are these songs two sides of the same coin, or are they the same side?  What does the refrain "you got it, you got it" mean in (Nothing but) Flowers?  What does the maniacal laughter at the end of Big Yellow Taxi mean?  Why do we hate change, we do we fear change?  Why do we yearn and long for the new and the novel, the yet to be seen?







PS 
Still wish you had a lawnmower?  Try another version.  Thinking about the Tree Museum?  Try this version.